MRI devices are of special importance in the world of medical imaging. Unlike other imaging methods, they present no radiation to the object of which they image. However, together with the benefit of no-radiation, comes the price of very large and complicated machine. In case of patients that are not able to move (e.g. premature baby in an incubator), the option of using an MRI device for scanning is practically impossible.
US patent application US2007/0238950 discloses a maneuverable medical device. However, the constructions of these modules depend on the location of a static patient pallet, and are oriented according to this static pallet location. In addition, the construction and medical device requires the entire room to be designated for the imaging.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,555,578 disclose a movable door element in a door of a multimodality medical suite, the door is part of a wall positioned between a first room and a second room of the suite, with the suite including a flexible raceway configured to extend within the length of the suite between the rooms and selectively extend through a portion of the door.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,118,488 discloses a medical imaging system, comprising: a base having a top surface, a first end and a second end; a pedestal connected to the base and positioned adjacent to the first end of the base, the pedestal extending in a vertical direction above the top surface of the base and configured to accept a plurality of interchangeable procedure-specific tabletop supports, and the pedestal is rotatable about an axis extending generally normal to the top surface of the base; and a gantry ring having a bore and an image collection apparatus, the gantry ring coupled to the base and positioned above the top surface of base, the gantry ring configured to translate along a length of the base between a first position adjacent to the pedestal to a second position adjacent to the second end of the base, the gantry ring further configured to rotate at least about ninety degrees with respect to an axis extending generally normal to the top surface. This device requires that the patient pallet will be located on the system. In addition the system is not and cannot be an integral part of a patient's room. The system needs to be delivered to patient's room, and therefore will occupy needed space. Therefore, the system does not support the needs of easily imaging a non-movable patient.
There is therefore a long unmet need for a system which is integrated to a patient room, and allows in situ and real time imaging of patients without moving them to remote MRI rooms.